Rickie Lambert, right, heads home the ball for England in the World Cup qualifier against Moldova. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters

Don't panic. With Danny Welbeck banned after picking up a booking in the defeat of Moldova at Wembley, England's attacking hopes before Tuesday's potentially decisive meeting with Ukraine in Kiev now rest on an itinerant 31-year-old centre forward enjoying an international bonus round late-career bloom.

Never mind for now the fact that should Rickie Lambert start in what will be a horribly intimidating atmosphere, judging by the fervour in Donetsk last summer, he will be making his first competitive appearance in a football match outside the UK.

And forget for now the echoes of Greg Dyke's doom-laden pre-match gee-down. On this evidence England have good reason to trust in a player who 10 years ago to the day at Wembley was an unused substitute for Stockport County against Port Vale but who played with great vigour, intelligence and craft against a poor Moldova team as England decelerated towards a straightforward 4-0 victory.

"Lambert was a selection people saw as coming about because two other candidates were missing but he took his chance, Roy Hodgson said. "He'll be expecting to play on Tuesday and I'll have to make a decision to go along with his expectancy or surprise him."

Daniel Sturridge's thigh strain will be assessed on Sunday but his chances of joining the squad are, according to Hodgson, "less than 50-50". Never mind though: Rickie is here. In the opening 45 minutes at Wembley Lambert scored one and made one, his best moment the nicely flighted pass, under no pressure at all, that picked out Welbeck for England's third goal.

This was matched five minutes into the second half by an elegantly stroked through-ball to help Welbeck add his second and then gilded moments later by a beautifully fiddled reverse pass that put Leighton Baines in on goal to draw a good save from the otherwise wretched Stanislav Namasci.

This was not bad going for a man who, if one believed some of the pre-match discussions, might have been introduced in the Wembley programme as Rickie Lambert: brought to you in association with Greg Dyke's England Meltdown.

It is, of course, a betrayal of Lambert's talents to style his appearance on Hodgson's team sheet as an act of product placement for the Dyke Apocalypse, better perhaps to see his success with England as an opportunity seized.

Certainly this seems to be the view of the Wembley crowd, who gave Lambert the loudest and fondest cheer as England's line-up was announced before kick-off.

He started at a sprint too, missing three presentable three-quarter chances in the opening four minutes and raising the suspicion that very few England strikers can have had as many shots – eight, here and against Scotland – in their opening 24 minutes of international football.

Lambert's second England goal, and England's second of the game, duly arrived after 26 minutes.

Walcott had a shot from the right, Namasco fumbled weirdly and somehow palmed the ball sideways on to Lambert's head. Wembley dissolved briefly into the first stirrings of Lambomania.

Crisis? What crisis? Of course, talk of decline always tends to lose its sense of wider perspective and the fact is England have spent large parts of the last three decades fielding relatively unstarry centre forwards.

Steve Bull played three matches the last time they did anything of note at a World Cup. At other times John Fashanu, Mick Harford, Brian Deane, Luther Blissett, David Nugent, Jay Bothroyd, Carlton Cole and Michael Ricketts have all worn the shirt, many of whom could only aspire to match Lambert's career goal record, not to mention his deftness in possession. There was a suggestion before kick-off that Lambert's selection here was based on the expectation the world's 123rd ranked team would sit deep at Wembley, raising the prospect of England prospering in the air, but this was a fluid England attack throughout, with Welbeck playing with energy and purpose on the left and Jack Wilshere popping up in the central attacking areas where he has yet to show the best of his talent but where he was impressive against Brazil in the spring.

For all this, England's opening goal was the work of their two-man midfield fulcrum. The question of whether Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can play together has now passed into history as a fevered curiosity from another age but there was a lovely flicker of what might have been as Lampard found space to roll the ball to Gerrard, whose skimming shot curved wickedly to clip the post on its way in, a wonderfully relaxed and adept piece of skill.

Lambert was replaced on 70 minutes, offering as he left the pitch a refreshingly frank punch of triumph. And there was hope of a different kind – youthful but equally fearless – in a compellingly assured debut for Ross Barkley, who simply looked like an international player: athletic, comfortable on the ball and astute in his passing.

Against an opposition who failed to muster a shot on target England succeeded in lifting, briefly, the pall of Dyke-ism, playing with zest and even at times in the second half what might have been a rare flicker of pleasure.

Tuesday night will be another kind of football entirely, an exercise above all in defensive discipline and ball retention. But England have some hope. And they have in Lambert at least one centre-forward who is, unreservedly, fit for purpose.